The game plays as a Choose Your Own Adventure where you take the life of a lowly noble and navigate life from birth to death. You start off as ab aby which is essentially just character development and then build up your story and ways forward later in the game. The game lore is very well written and the atmosphere is great. I heartily recommend it if you like CYOA games. Only niggles for me were a few inconsistencies, some spelling/grammatical errors. I would be fine with the spelling errors - they happen, but I think they need to nail consistency to keep the immersion in a game like this. That's the only reason I knocked off one star.
Important Note: I played through Age of Decadence several times before playing this game, so my experice may vary to yours. I only played this game on "Hard" (default difficulty) and "Solo Mode Hard". Overview: The game consists of approximately 50 battles, which are set-pieces. There are no random encounters. This makes it a game about learning what the encounters are about. Playing the game for the first time was challenging and I did not learn my lessons that defense is more important than offense. I also learnt later that it is ok for some of the early companions to die (although you don't want it to happen often). I would certainly suggest anyone playing this for the first time to play on "Easy", especially if you have never played Age of Decadence before. This game is unforgiving on "Hard" and like the description says, you will die a lot. In general however, if you enjoy turn-based battles, and like tactics and strategising, then you will likely enjoy this game. For example, each weapon has multiple attack types, which alter your attack chance and also which body part you hit. Attacking a heavily-armoured opponent with a "Fast" weak attack will not do anything, as you may not even be able to damage the character. However, if that same character is not wearing a helmet, then it is likely worth trying for headshots instead. Character Creation: You start the game by creating your character. This is in essence the most important part of the game, which is why you should play on "Easy" if you do not understand the mechanics of the game. It is imperative to focus on only 1 weapon skill and only 1 defense skill. You will not be (or are very unlikely to be) fighting with multiple weapons. The game's defense mechanic only works on one defense skill, which is why there is no point splitting points between dodge and block. You should as third and fourth skills probably go for Critical Strike and either Crafting or Alchemy, but it is probably better to not choose these at character creation. Instead, ensure you can win your first few battles without relying on these. Battle: As described above, you will be fighting (and dying) a lot. So be prepared to save your game a lot. Press F5 to quicksave and save on new slots as well in case you make a mistake, you can go back. The battles are action points dependent which in turn are dependent on Dexterity. Each weapon has a certain amount of base AP needed to use it and different attack types woudl then alter both the amount of AP and damage the weapon inflicts. Be aware of enemy's armour, shields or lack thereof as that should change your tactics. Sometimes it's better to hit someone in the arms so you do not die, rather than go for a power attack and hope to kill them faster. Crafting: Crafting is an integral part of the game, as you find new forges to make better weapons and armour. Each point in crafting will unlock better crafting techniques, however, it's every two points that really matters as this would allow you to craft with higher quality materials ranging from Bronze to Sky Metal. Each upgrade in metal type increases damage by 1 and defense rating by 1. Since this game is played out with 30-60 hitpoints, this is a lot. Imagine two enemies attacking you for 5 damage each with two hits each. In one turn that would mean 20HP lost if they hit you all 4 times without any armour. If you had an additional 2DR, each hit would only mean 3 damage, reducing your HP pool by only 12HP, almost halving your damage taken. Please be aware of this when looking at armour, and weapons. Alchemy: This is similar to crafting except that it can help you in a wider range of situations. Alchemy can be used to heal after battle, increase your Action Points, increase your damage or even throw bombs and fire at the enemy. The first thing to use alchemy for would be to heal yourself and create antidotes against poison as well as creating poison agaisnt humans. My Games: I played the game through to completion twice, however I did experiment with a few different builds. First playthrough was a dud and I realised I had focused too much on attack, which meant I died too often. I also focused on Intelligence and Charisma, which apparenlty is not as useful in a Prison as it was in Maadoran (Age of Decadence). The second playthrough was much better. I played a crossbow character focusing only on my defensive and offensive skills. I did not build any crafting or alchemy, leaving that to my followers. I found the start relatively difficult, but the end game, with a full build crossbowman and rest of party meant the final few battles were relatively easy. I tried playing an ironman game after that, but realised it's not for me. I enjoy trying out multiple tactics more than restarting the game from scratch all the time. My latest game (and likely last one unless a patch changes things up a lot) was a solo run as an Axe/Dodge build. Several battles proved very hard, but everything I learnt from my previous games meant I had a relatively easy early game. It was the late-game playing with just one character which was hard and I did win a few of those thanks to some luck or by the skin of my teeth. All in all, I must have played around 60 hours (even though Steams says 50 - as I played some offline too) and enoyed it tremendously. I put down Tyranny and Dragon Age: Origins for this. Which probably says quite a bit about the fun I have playing this game. I also do prefer turn-based to be honest :D Anyway, I recommend this game to almost anyone who enjoys turn based games, but I recommend starting on "Easy"!
Note: Had to shorten -> Not enough characters allowed :( Background The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Roman world. You are just one man who arrived in the small town of Teron. The game starts you out as one of eight different backgrounds. These can be: Preator, Loremaster, Assassin, Mercenary, Thief, Merchant, Grifter & Drifter Character creation You start out by creating your character in the game and allocating attribute and skill points. You may distribute these points however you want. Note that being a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None is very difficult to play in this game. Focus on a few skills. Gameplay It's an isometric-perspective mouse-controlled game. The game is text-heavy, but luckily, the text and story are well-written - and very interestingly, all of the stories interweave into one. So playing as one background will feel very different than playing as another. No single playthrough will be the same due to so many different ways of completing quests. Combat is turn-based and requires a lot of planning, so do not think your highly intelligent loremaster with zero combat skills will be able to win fights. Combat includes aimed attacks, nets, bolas, fire bombs etc. Conclusion The major selling point of this game is the interweaving story arcs. I have played the game as a Merchant and a Mercenary and the game played completely differently based on my actions. I would recommend this game to people who like turn-based combat and good stories and are not afraid of challenges. I would not recommend this game to people who dislike turn-based combat systems, reading or are too much into graphics to enjoy older-looking games. Pros: Amazing writing Lots of interweaving stories and arcs Challenging combat: with old style aimed attacks a la Fallout Lots of different skills and attributes affecting almost all questlines Interesting guilds and backgrounds to choose from Cons: Old-looking graphics Some feelings of being gated sometimes
